Friday, September 23, 2016

Catholics who have left the church say they would not return

US Catholics
who have left the church don’t believe they could be tempted to return,
according to a survey by Pew Research Center, carried out in 2015,
examining American Catholics and family life.

In the lead up to Pope Francis’ US visit at the end of September
2015, the survey also revealed that although the number of practicing
Catholics in the US may be dropping, the number of people affiliated in
some way with the Church is in fact rising, be it through their parents,
a spouse or some other cultural connection.

Many Americans brought up as Catholics are turning their backs on the
faith for a number of reasons. Seventy-seven per cent of those who have
left say they could never envision returning to the Church and gave no
clear indication that any change to Church teachings would make them
reconsider this.

The survey showed that as many as half those who were raised as
Catholics left at some point in their lives, although 11 per cent did
return.In total, however, as much as 45 per cent of Americans say that they are in some way connected to Catholicism.
“Cultural Catholics” (non-practising but identify in some way with the
faith) make up nine percent of these, a further nine per cent are
ex-Catholics, and eight per cent have a connection to the faith because
of a partner, spouse, or other family member.

Among those who identified as “Cultural Catholics”, 59 per cent were
raised as Catholics or had a Catholic parent. The remainder claimed that
a Catholic spouse (15 per cent), a general affiliation with Christian
beliefs or practices (nine percent) or the idea that their religion is
rooted in Catholicism (15 percent) were the reasons for their
connection.

The Pew Survey also surveyed US Catholic views on a number of contentious issues within the Church’s teaching
such as contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage, priests marrying and
sinful behavior, finding that support, in particular for contraception,
was high.

A massive 76 per cent of those surveyed who religiously identified as
Catholics believe that the Church should allow the use of birth control
while only 59 percent felt that women should be allowed to become
priests and 46 per cent were happy for the Church to recognize the
marriages of same-sex couples. These figures were lower among Catholics
who attend Mass weekly although 60% were still in favor of the use of
contraception.

Figures were higher among Cultural Catholics and ex-Catholics
although still ranging in at around two-thirds in support of female
priests and same-sex marriage.

The concept of sin was also a difficult one among identifying
Catholics with disagreement over what still constituted as a sin in the
eyes of the Church and in their own lives. A massive 90 per cent still
believe in the concept of sin but only 57 percent feel it’s a sin to
have an abortion and 44 per cent that homosexuality is a sin.Again, use of contraception fared well with only 17 per cent feeling
it was sinful. Even among church goers, only 31 per cent thought of the
use of contraception as a sin.

The latest Pew survey was conducted between May 5 and June 7 2015.
They contacted a national sample of 5,122 adults of whom 1,016 were
Catholics.

In comparison with the US, in Ireland 84 per cent of the population identify as Catholic
although this, too, in in decline. In the latest census in 2011, there
was a surge in those who describe themselves as not religious, now
making then the second largest group in Ireland.

In 2011 227,000 people described themselves as not religious, a
massive rise of 44 per cent on the figure taken in the previous 2006
census.Despite this, the influx of other religions and the wave of scandal
that has racked the Catholic Church in Ireland in the past number of
years, those identifying as Catholic dropped by just three per cent
between 2006 and 2011, from 87 per cent to 84 per cent.

In fact the
number of Catholics in Ireland rose in the last census by 180,000 due to
population increase.

There is, however, a vast contrast between those who identify as Catholic as those who regularly practice.

In 2011, it was reported that only 18 per cent of Irish people in the Republic of Ireland were regularly attending mass, changed radically from the 90 per cent attending mass in 1984.